How to succeed on Instagram

How to succeed on Instagram

I don’t know the industry standard of what would be considered a success on Instagram. Although I feel like I have succeeded on Instagram and continue to grow daily. Some people succeed with the latest and often reposted memes, some people succeed on their beauty or lavish lifestyles.

I am not a pretty man with a lavish lifestyle, and I dislike a lot of the memes out there. So it did not really seem like Instagram was a place for me to succeed. I would consider myself a geek that loves to help others, and I took my “in real life” style to the internet.

How I started

My Instagram page started off reposting unknown cosplayer and gamer girls from around the web. I would reach out to these girls and ask them if I could share their photo on my page. If they said yes, I would share it then tag them, hashtag it, tag the photographer if applicable. I would also ask them if I could watermark it with my logo, so people would know where to find more of the content if the picture started to float around the internet (I no longer watermark photos). I was not only sharing it on the Instagram Platform but using tools such as IFTTT to automatically share it across twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest.

So now my feed consisted of people’s original content, but with their permission for posting said photos. Then eventually I started getting more likes and people even started to Direct message me their photos on their own volition. Now the content was coming straight to me, and I no longer had to search through hashtags to find new content to post. I was now helping these people who wanted to gain exposure, and they were helping me by sending in content for me to post, it was win-win. I wasn’t really doing anything special except these few points that are mostly common sense, but probably overlooked by a new internet marketer.

Be Genuine

Believe it or not people can tell if you are trying to be slick and pull a fast one on them. In most cases being shady is an unnecessary thing to do. After all you are trying to build a relationship with viewers so that they keep coming back.

Give credit by tagging the person who made the photo

So many of these popular pages repost peoples content and don’t even tag them. You are literally stealing from them. I mean it would not hurt you at all to tag them in a photo, they will gain followers and they might even very well start sending you their photos.

Don’t be pushy

If someone doesn’t want you to use their photo, don’t make a fuss about it, move on and find another photo. There is so much content out there it is ridiculous, and honestly it will probably be that person’s loss so move on.

Network

Networking is key as this is social media after all, and other people in your niche are not your enemy’s. I find that so many people in my niche want to work against me and one up me, but that is backwards thinking. You have viewers who probably have very similar tastes and if you guys share your feeds with each others followers and you both will gain more followers. There are plenty of people in the world of Instagram and there is no reason why more than one page can’t succeed in the same niche. Also, don’t forget to network with the people whose photos you are sharing they may come in handy down the line.

Original Content

Now if you are a natural beauty, meme trend lover, or have a lavish lifestyle this will make things a tad easier for you to succeed on Instagram because you can probably create your own content. Original content from my own brain is currently what I lack on my Instagram, I have dabbled and made a few things here and there, but It could really spice up my feed if I had my own original content.

Original content is a pretty hard thing to start, but that is the lovely thing about your account. You can post anything you want; you just have to be able to use your best judgement to know if the content is good. By good I mean is it engaging with your followers (comments, likes, etc.)? If you see that they like it post more of it. If they don’t like it you can try posting it at a different time of the day, but if it fails again it is time to tweak it.

Ask a friend their genuine opinion of the content you made (best with a friend that doesn’t mind roasting you and telling you that you suck). It’s a process and you won’t always have a viral hit off the back, but if you keep working at it something good is sure to come out of all the hard work so stay positive.

Original content will probably be the best thing to have if you can figure out what you want to create because it will be unique to you. Your true fans will know that that photo or video was made by you and they will defend you when someone reposts it and claims it as theirs.

Standard Instagram practices

Hashtags

Share high quality images

Post great content

Use an engaging caption

Post frequently

Encourage engagement with your audience

These are just some helpful little hints on how to succeed on Instagram from my own personal experience. They are not definitive guidelines that will guarantee you a mass following, but they are the guides that I followed to reach 160k followers in a year.

If you have anything to add comment below because I would like to know how you succeeded on Instagram.